CHAPTER II A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

FEELING like a man in a dream, the corporal took his seat at the table, and when the soup was served by an Indian youth, he was too much amazed to attempt conversation. Miss Gargrave looked at him and casually asked, “You have never been to North Star before, Mr. Bracknell?”

“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “I am new to this district. I was transferred from Edmonton four months ago.”

“Then you did not know of our existence?”

The corporal smiled. “I had heard something of it; but the truth is I had forgotten all about it.”

The girl nodded. “I can understand that. We are so far out of the track of things that it is easy for the world to forget us.”

Bracknell would have liked to ask why such as she should continue to live in the wilderness; but he repressed his curiosity, and looking round smiled again.

“Your solitude is not without its amenities. I did not think there was such a room as this anywhere in the north. It reminds one of home!”

“You are English, of course?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “I come from Kendal, in Westmorland.”

“Kendal?” There was an accent of surprise in her voice.

[13]

“You know Kendal?” he inquired quickly.

“Yes,” she answered. “I have stayed in the neighbourhood. Are you any relation of Sir James Bracknell of Harrowfell?”

“My uncle and guardian,” he smilingly replied.

Joy Gargrave looked at him thoughtfully. “I have met your uncle,” she said slowly. “I should scarcely have looked for his nephew in the Mounted Police.”

“Why not?” he demanded, with a laugh. “The Force is a packet of surprises. My sergeant at Edmonton was the heir to an Irish peerage, and I know a trooper down at Alberta who is the second son of a marquis.”

“But Sir James!” she murmured. “He did not seem to me the sort of man who would approve—”

“He does not know,” interrupted the corporal.

“It is very likely that he would not approve if he did. But that does not greatly matter; as before I came out here we quarrelled, and the relations between us are likely to continue strained.”

“Is it permissible to ask the cause of this quarrel?” inquired the man on the other side of the table, whose name the corporal had not yet learned.

Bracknell frowned at the directness of the question and was about to administer a snub, when he caught Miss Gargrave’s eyes fixed upon him expectantly. He laughed shortly as he replied, “Well, Mr.—ar—”

“Rayner is my name,” said the other. “I forgot I had not introduced myself.”

The corporal nodded. “I was about to say, Mr. Rayner, that it is a private matter; but there can[14] be no harm in saying that my uncle had a matrimonial scheme for me of which I did not approve, so here I am.”

He laughed to hide his embarrassment of which he was conscious, and looked at Miss Gargrave to whom the explanation had really been offered. There was a thoughtful look upon her face.

“Sir James is rather dictatorial,” she said, and then turned the conversation. “Do you like the service?”

“Yes,” was the reply, given wholeheartedly. “It is a man’s work, and the open-air life, with all the many hazards of the North, is infinitely preferable to stewing in chambers waiting for briefs; or devilling the K.C. who wants to keep all the crumbs on his own table.”

The girl nodded. “I can understand that,” she commented, and for a moment she sat there crumbling her bread.

The thoughtful look on her face was accentuated. Remembering what he had seen there when she had passed him in the road, the corporal found himself wondering if there was any connection between the two. Then Miss Gargrave spoke again.

“I suppose you are in this neighbourhood on professional business?”

“Yes,” he answered readily enough. “I have been following a man for a month and have trailed him something like four hundred miles.”

“That is a long journey in winter,” said the girl a trifle absently.

Corporal Bracknell smiled. “Nothing to boast of. There have been many longer trails in the[15] Territory by our men. Did you ever hear how Constable Pedley took the lunatic missionary from Fort Chipewayn to Saskatchewan down the Athabasca River in the very depth of winter?”

“Yes,” answered the girl. “That was an epic. The constable lost his own reason in the end, didn’t he?”

Bracknell nodded. “Yes, but he’s better again now; though naturally that experience has set its mark on him. And if I had got my man my return journey would have been much harder than the journey up, as I should have had to look after him; and sleep with one eye open all the time.”

“You speak as if you had lost your man,” said Rayner. “Is that so?”

“Yes, I have lost him finally,” answered the corporal slowly.

“Who was he? What had he done? Was he a very desperate character?” inquired Miss Gargrave, and to the corporal as he turned to her it seemed as if there was a look of troubled expectancy in her face.

“He was an Englishman,” answered Bracknell quietly, his eyes fixed on the beautiful face. “I do not know that he was a particularly desperate character, but he certainly was not scrupulous, and he was suspected of selling whiskey to the Indians in the reservation, which is a serious offence in the Territory.”

“What name?” asked Miss La Farge.

“His proper name I do not know, but he has been known through the North as Koona Dick!”

As he gave the name he saw Joy Gargrave’s face[16] grow white, and the trouble in her eyes was plain. Also, with the tail of his eye, he saw Mr. Rayner start violently, and guessed that both he and his hostess were not unacquainted with the man who lay out there in the snow under the shadow of the pines. For a moment after his reply there was a strained uneasy silence. The corporal removed his eyes from his hostess’s face and glanced round the table. Mr. Rayner was fingering the stem of a wine-glass nervously, whilst Miss La Farge was looking from him to Miss Gargrave with puzzled eyes. Evidently she was conscious that something unusual was taking place, but the corporal was sure that to her the name he had just spoken was without any special significance. That it was known to the other two people present he was certain, and he waited to see what would follow. The sense of strain grew more pronounced, then Mr. Rayner shuffled uneasily and broke the silence.

“I notice, Corporal Bracknell, that you speak of this—er—fellow in the past tense, and you say that he has escaped you finally. Do you mean to say that he is—a—dead?”

“He is lying in the snow in a path cut through the trees off the main road to the Lodge,” answered the corporal steadily, “and he has been shot, I think.”

“Good God!” ejaculated Mr. Rayner, in a voice that, whilst it expressed astonishment, seemed to the corporal to be a little flat. “And we have been sitting here, gassing, whilst—” He broke off abruptly. “Joy,” he cried addressing Miss Gargrave, “you are ill. The shock of this story—”

[17]

“It is nothing,” interrupted the girl in a shaking voice. “I—I—feel a little faint. If you will excuse me—” She rose to her feet, staggered a little, and then, as Miss La Farge ran to her, fainted outright. For a moment Corporal Bracknell did not speak, though a look of utmost concern came upon his face. The situation seemed to him to be thronged with dreadful possibilities. Remembering the look on the girl’s face when he had encountered her in the forest road, and the rifle in her hand, he found in this faint further support for the suspicion which had occurred to him when he had stood by the supine body of Koona Dick. Living in the wilds, it was scarcely likely that the news of a dead man would affect her thus, if that news were without special significance for her. Death in the Northland—death sharp and sudden was not so uncommon as all that. Moving accidents by flood and field, by wild beasts and wild men, were part of the general circumstances of wilderness life; why, therefore, should the girl be thus affected by the news that he had uttered? Whilst Mr. Rayner assisted Miss La Farge to carry their hostess out of the room, he stood there, his mind occupied by this momentous question. The answer was one which took the form of a further question and which filled him with concern. Had she killed Koona Dick, with whom, as he was sure, she was acquainted?

Again he saw the beautiful face, the picture of terror and the eyes in their unseeing stare of horror, and wondered what was the meaning of it all. Had the girl seen the body of Koona Dick lying there[18] in the shadow of the pines with his blood staining the snow, and was she merely frightened; or was her knowledge of a more intimate and guilty character? He could not decide, and whilst he was still wondering, the door of the room opened and Rayner entered. His face now was mask-like, and his voice was suave and even as he addressed the officer.

“I am afraid your story has been a shock to Miss Gargarve, who has not been very well all day. You will have to excuse her for this evening; but that is no reason why you should not finish your dinner, after which we might go out and look at this dead man. I suppose he will have to have sepulchre?”

“Even the worst of us should have that,” answered the corporal quietly, then added, “Miss Gargrave—she is better?”

“Yes, it was only a faint. I expect she found it rather shocking to think that whilst we were sat here, that man was lying dead in the snow outside.”

“I can understand that,” answered the other in a non-committal voice.

Mr. Rayner nodded. “Feminine nerves are unstable things.” A second later he asked, “Did I understand you to say that this man whom you were following was shot?”

“That is only a guess of mine,” was the reply. “I found him lying there in the snow, and only a few minutes before I distinctly heard a rifle fire twice.”

“But,” objected Mr. Rayner, “it does not follow that the shots you heard were directed against[19] this man Koona Dick? I myself fired at a timber-wolf on the outskirts of the homestead just a little while before your arrival.”

“Did you fire twice?” asked Corporal Bracknell quickly.

“N—no! Once!”

There was a little hesitation before the reply was given. It was but the fraction of a second, but the policeman marked it, and suspected that the other had been a little uncertain as to what he ought to answer.

“But I heard two shots—one on the heels of the other,” answered Bracknell.

“One may have been the echo,” suggested Rayner. “Up here when it is still, sounds are easily duplicated.”

“No, it was not an echo,” asserted the corporal. “I am quite sure of that. I have lived in the wilds too long to be deceived in a small matter of that sort. The second shot was as real as the first. And there is another thing I ought to tell you, Mr. Raynor. Immediately after the second shot I heard a woman cry out.”

Mr. Rayner looked interested. “Are you quite sure it was a woman?” he asked. “It may have been the death-cry of this man—er—Koona Dick, which you heard.”

“That is just possible,” agreed the corporal. “Yet it seemed to me like the cry of a woman in terror.”

“It is easy even for trained ears to be mistaken up here,” said the other suavely. “Since I came here I have heard a hare scream like a child in agony.[20] The cry you heard may have been no more than that of some small creature falling a victim to the law of the wild, which is that the strongest takes the prey.”

“Maybe!” said Bracknell laconically. In his heart he did not accept the explanation, plausible though it was.

“I am sure of it,” answered the other, as if determined to convince him. “In the silence of these northern forests, as I have noticed often of late, sounds seem to take strange qualities. The loneliness accentuates them, and if one has any reason for suspecting the presence of other humans besides one’s self, then every sound one hears seems to have some bearing on the unseen presences.”

“Perhaps,” replied the policeman, wondering why the other should be so persistent in the matter; “but you forget one thing which is rather fatal to your argument.”

“And what is that?” inquired Rayner quickly.

“Well, I was not expecting to find a woman up in this wilderness; indeed, it was the last thought in my mind. That fact makes your argument fail, at any rate as applied to the cry I heard.”

To this Mr. Rayner made no reply. He pushed a wine decanter towards the other, and rising from the table crossed the room to a cabinet, from which he took out a box of cigars.

“We will have a smoke, before going to look at this dead man.”

Corporal Bracknell accepted the cigar, which was of choice brand, and when he had lit it he looked at the other—and said thoughtfully. “I have been[21] wondering why Miss Gargrave lives up here in the wilds?”

Rayner laughed a little. “I am not surprised at that. Everybody wonders. But the fact is that she has no real choice in the matter. As I dare say you will have heard, Rolf Gargrave was immensely rich, and he made his daughter his heiress, but on the condition that for three years after his death she should live at North Star Lodge. That is the explanation!”

“But why on earth should he make a condition of that sort—- for a girl?”

“He was a crank!” replied Rayner contemptuously. “He was not an admirer of what is called modern civilization—indeed, he detested it most heartily and whilst he sent his daughter to England to be educated, he desired to protect her against society influences; and he believed that a few years in the North here, in touch with primitive life, would give her a distaste for the shams and artificialities of great cities. Also—I believe he was a little afraid of fortune-hunters and wanted Joy’s mind to mature before she met the breed.”

Bracknell nodded his understanding of the situation, and then remarked. “The place is not without its points—but to my thinking it has grave dangers also. When Miss Gargrave returns to civilization, the reaction from the hard life and the solitude of the North is likely to be so great that in the whirl she may be carried off her feet.”

“Yes, Rolf Gargrave does not appear to have thought of that. But there are others who have it in mind.” The corporal looked thoughtfully at[22] his companion, and wondered what relation he stood to their hostess. It was a question that could not be asked openly, but remembering how once or twice the girl’s Christian name had slipped into Rayner’s speech he guessed that whatever the relationship was, it was a fairly intimate one. He was still wondering when his companion rose.

“If you are ready, Corporal Bracknell, we will go and look at—a—Koona Dick.”

The corporal rose with alacrity, and five minutes later, clad in outdoor furs, they were moving briskly down the road cut between the pines. As they walked, the policeman looked about him with keen eyes, and when they reached the point where the narrower path that he had followed branched off, noticed what had escaped him before, namely that the path was evidently continued on the other side of the road also. Rayner did not hesitate between the two. He made a straight line for the path which led to the place where Koona Dick had fallen. As they turned into it, the thought that he might be wrong appeared to strike him, and he halted abruptly.

“This path, wasn’t it? The left going towards the house, I think you said, didn’t you?”

“Yes, the left!” answered Corporal Bracknell quietly, but as he walked by the other’s side the question leaped in his mind. “Did I mention the left?” He could not remember. He doubted, and his doubts were strengthened by the fact that till a moment before he had not known that the path was continued across the main road. Thinking there was only one path, there was no reason why[23] he should have mentioned the position of it. Yet the man by his side had known which path to take! As he walked on, he gave no sign, but a question leaped up in his mind. “How did Rayner know?”

Then simultaneously he and his companion came to an abrupt halt. At their feet in the snow was a dark blot. The corporal looked hastily round, then felt for his matches and struck one. As the wood caught, he stooped and examined the ground near the dark blot, where was the impress of a heavy body in the snow, and footmarks all round it. He stared at the trampled snow in amazement, then he examined the snow in the shadow of the trees. Its surface in the immediate neighbourhood was unbroken, save by the print of a single pair of moccasined feet, and those footmarks moved towards the place where Koona Dick had lain, and not away from it. He looked among the underwood in the neighbourhood of the path. The search in the darkness revealed nothing, nowhere was there any sign of the man whom they had come to look for.

“What is it?” asked Rayner in an odd voice. “What has happened?”

“A strange thing has happened,” said the corporal laconically. “The body we came to look for has disappeared.”